Dog Handling

it isn't all about spoilt rotten 1 year old Terriers.

My apologies to those of you who like to read about Real Dog Training. Fae the Fat Fairy keeps getting requests for her stories and I help her oblige - sorry

Over the last three years we have run Summer Flyball on a Thursday night at Dog Sports Rotorua. It has morphed a bit as it has gone along and it will probably continue to do that.

I have mentioned before that I sometimes have difficulty getting people to play with their dog. Either they feel silly about it, especially if they are a six foot macho person. The idea of playing dog tug with a pink pig tied to a piece of bungy cord just doesn't appeal. I encourage the children who come to the club to play and that works with the littles up to about six or seven years old but after that it is not 'cool' to play with the dog, in a public place anyway.

So in order to get the dog to concentrate on you and to want to please and feel part of a team thing with you, there has to be a game that both participants get something from. I believe, for beginners anyway, that game is Flyball.

My motive is to use Flyball to get people involved in wanting to train their dog to do specific tricks, but that means their dog has to come when called, wait quietly for its turn, send away after a ball, bring the ball back as a retrieve. The dog has to 'like' other dogs. You can't turn a dog loose to do a retrieve ten meters away from another dog if it is going to rip off and tear up the other dog, so socialisation is necessary.

In an enclosed environment where there are fifteeen other dogs and maybe the same number of people, the dog and handler team effort is pretty much laid bare. Untrained dogs will be at their worst when under pressure of being around other 'strange' dogs and equally 'strange' people.

When people sign up for Flyball, I need to know that the dog has some desire to play. Will bring a ball or frisbee or soft toy back and that it doesn't have a history of ragging other animals. Then let the fun begin.

The first thing that a new handler discovers is that when the distraction level is very high, their dog no longer recognises his name, any commands or for that matter even the look of his handler. He seems to just lose it and run off and meet and greet all the other dogs, zoom around the park with the other dogs, jump wildly at other people, grab any dog toys left lying around and shred them, and sometimes lose his manners so badly, that he gets overexcited and nips another dog, which can sometimes cause a reaction from the other dog and then trouble begins in the form of a growling and snapping match. If the handlers step into this fray, it can turn nasty, so I beg the handlers to walk in opposite directions and for people to stay out of the scene. 98% of the time it is over as quickly as it starts and is not caused by any particular malice. If no fuss is made it is generally forgotten by both dogs in no time. If the handlers accidently re-inforce the behaviour then it can have the long term effect of causing stress to both the dog and the handler for the rest of their days.

In what way? Handler usually sayes, that for some reason his dog does not like - dogs with shaggy coats, or dogs with white tails, or small fluffy dogs, or large black dogs. Rubbish. That is the handler's view but not the dog's view. If the handler is tense and grips the lead extra tight and yells at the owner/handler of the other approaching dog to keep away or any other stupid thing along this line, then the dog may well develop the propensity to attack other dogs that are recognised by his handler as being dogs he does not like.

Now and again I run across a dog that does Sudden Attack Syndrome but they are not invited to play Flyball with us until a lot of work has been done to settle the problem.

So when the dogs come to Flyball they are often very excited. Exciteable playful dogs make very good Flyball Dogs. Even the dogs that run away and don't hear their name, and even the dogs that are brave and stupid and run up to other dogs and people in great glee as though they are their best friends. These are the dogs that will do the game. The poor little dogs that are scared of their own shadow, and big trucks and sky rockets, really do not make good Flyball dogs. They would be much better doing Obedience and Rally O to build up their confidence, than to even entertain the idea of doing a sport where another stupid dog might jump at them just when they have hit the box and grabbed the ball and it just terrifies them.

So we want dogs with guts and stamina. These are usually the unruly dogs who never run out of steam.

Obviously the first thing we want to do is to get the dog to focus on us and the game. So out comes the tennis ball and the fluffy pink pig tied to a piece of bungy cord. One dog at a time I teach retrieves. All the other dogs are in a down beside their handlers on leash and one by one each dog comes forward to chase his own ball and when he turns around with the retrieve the stupid pink pig on the bungy is being waved around and he wants it so he drops the ball and comes in for the kill on the pink pig and a massive tug game ensues.

All the other class dogs are kept still because the thing that moves the most is what will attract the dog doing the game. Sometimes at our Dog Park a lot of traffic goes by and some of our dogs lose the plot and the traffic movement becomes the 'most movement' and therefore the most attractive. So you have to practice avoidance when learning this game and make sure when the dog turns it will see your game, not the traffic, not the birds in the sky just your game. Oh I had better mention that the Park we use at the moment is well fenced so that the dogs cannot get to the road and the traffic, otherwise everyone will think I am winding dogs up to become axle fodder.

Once you have the retrieve going and the dog carrying the ball back, then dropping the ball and playing tug, you have virtually won the war against distraction. Now we need to get two dogs, two handlers and two balls and two stupid fluffy pink pigs on bungy cords. I put my handlers about twentyfive meters apart and they face in the same direction.

First I get one handler to throw their ball and get their dog back for the game. As soon as No.1 handler has his dog by the collar, the other handler throws his ball and gets his dog back to play tug. Then I get both handlers to tug with their dogs at the same time. Then I get them to do a very short retrieve at the same time and back to tug. By short I mean two or three meters. If this works the first time for both dogs it is a miracle, but I can make a note of where the wheels fell off for each dog and we can work on that weak point. We can do all combinations with a bunch of dogs and handlers and with a bit of homework each night, by week three all dogs should be able to work 25 meters apart doing a ten meter retrieve and playing tug, consistently without running off to each other, or another distraction. But you have to be awake, and if your dog is looking interested in something else then you may have to resort to (heaven forbid) the food pot to get him back on track.

This is an introductory lesson for Flyball remember. This is the anti distraction retrieve. The other elements are learning to hit the flybox and get the ball on the full, and learning the flyball hurdles which make up the flyball course.

Raewyn Saville 2nd November 2012